The National Vegetation Classification (NVC)

The National
Vegetation Classification (NVC) is one of the key common standards
developed for the country nature conservation agencies. The
original project aimed to produce a comprehensive classification
and description of the plant communities of Britain, each
systematically named and arranged and with standardised
descriptions for each.

It was
originally commissioned in 1975 by the Nature Conservancy Council
(NCC) and was intended as a new classification, not an attempt to
fit British plant communities into some existing scheme derived
from elsewhere in Europe. The general approach adopted was
phytosociologicaland, therefore, concentrated on the rigorous recording of
floristic data. It did, nevertheless, try to avoid over-scrupulous
selection of samples, rejection of awkward data and preoccupation
with the hierarchical taxonomy of vegetation types.